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How to Configure Synthetic Backups to Cloud with Full and Incremental Backup to Disk?

SSX_IT_Ops
Level 3

I am currently doing Full backups to disk at the end of the work week with incremental backups to disk at the end of each work day.  The Full backups are retained on disk for a month.  The Incremental backups are retained for a week.

What I am hoping to do is also duplicate these backups to the cloud.  However a regular duplicate of the Full to the cloud would be both time and cost prohibitive.  To minimize the amount of data to be transferred, it looks like synthetic backups are the way to go for cloud backup.

So what I am hoping to do is:

  • Full weekly backups to disk to be retained for one month on disk.
  • Incremental daily backups to disk to be retained for one week on disk.
  • Synthetic full backup to cloud to be retained perpetually.
  • Duplicate the incremental daily backups to the cloud to be retained for one week.

How would I configure this in Backup Exec?  A Synthetic Backup is defined in Backup Exec as a baseline Full, Incrementals, and a Synthetic Full Backup.

So when defining the backup job:

  • Do I configure the Full and Incrementals to go to Disk and then configure the Synthetic Full Backup to go directly to the cloud? 

  • Or do I have to configure the Full, Incrementals, and Synthetic Full to go to Disk and then add a separate duplicate task for the Synthetic Full Backup to go to the Cloud?

Or do I have to do configure it a different way?

Best regards.

5 REPLIES 5

Gurvinder
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

1. You will need to install the "Advanced Disk Based Backup feature"  Backup Exec Console -> Installation and Licensing -> Install Features and Licenses on this Backup Exec server

2. The synthetic backup will be applicable only for file system data

3. You can do a Full backup to Disk (weekend), Incremental Backup to Disk (weekdays) and synthetic to cloud storage will just combine Full and Incrementals and create a new synthetic Full on the Cloud. In short, it is like a full Backup to Cloud, so cost wise I am not sure how much it will lower the cost. (as a side note, if backing up or duplicating to cloud just ensure verify is disabled in the Job) 

If you want, you can do the Full and Incremental to local Disk and then Duplicate the Full Backup to Cloud storage.

OR

You can also dedupe to cloud. Refer to this article to configure the cloud storage as a open dedupe ost device https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.000127295 (do a full and Incremental to disk and duplicate the full to this cloud ost open dedupe storage)

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

I dont think you can write your synthetic backup to cloud without incurring extra costs as once you have the first synthetic(full)  in the cloud the next set of incrementals will depend on  that sythetic and then to assemble the next synthetic it will read from the cloud (which for most cloud providers has a cost attached.)

You can probably duplicate your synthetic to the cloud so that the latest synthetic full always resides in on-site storage. Basically a synthetic operation kind of works like this (assuming trying to emulate weekly fulls with daily incremnetals and not implementing a daily full scenario)

Initial Full backup

Incrementals 1 through 5

Weekly Synthetic (full) 1 - combines Initial Full with Incrementals 1 through 5 to make a synthetic full

Incrementals 6 through 10

Weekly Synthetic (full) 2 - combines Weekly Synthetic (full) 1 with Incrementals 6 through 10

Incrementals 11 through 15

Weekly Synthetic (full) 3 - combines Weekly Synthetic (full) 2 with Incrementals 11 through 15

etc

The initial basline full is only used by the first synthetic and not the later ones.

Note: If emulating daily full with your synthetic strategy then the read from the cloud would be every day

So if your synthetic fulls are in the cloud this will almost certainly have a cost implication (and may have a performance implication as well. )

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the insight and clarification.  I know we can't avoid read costs to the cloud but can we minimize transfer costs?

For instance:

When Backup Exec creates the weekly synthetic by combining the previous weekly synthetic plus any incrementals that occurred since -- is this performed on the Backup Server before being sent to the storage?  Or is the reconstitution done in the storage device?

For instance, suppose the synthetic backup process occurs entirely in the cloud.  Meaning the initial full backup baseline is in the cloud, the incrementals are in the cloud, and the synthetic fulls are in the cloud.  When it is time to perform a synthetic full, does Backup Exec just sends read/write commands to the cloud?  Or does it actually create the synthetic backup on the server and then sends the backup set over to the cloud bit-by-bit?

In older versions of Backup Exec, there use to be an option called Full Copy.  It would perform a full backup of the resource but would not reset the archive bit or change the journal.

I can't find this option in Backup Exec 20 anymore.  Or does it go by a different name now?

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

As the synthetic process existed before we supported cloud the processsing and has not been enhanced, any processing is be done on the Backup Exec server